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On The Colorado Rockies’ Beat: Misquotes And Mismanagement

By BobDeMuro |

Jul 22, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Colorado Rockies shortstop

Troy Tulowitzki

(2) avoids being hit by a pitch during the seventh inning against the Texas Rangers at Coors Field. The Rangers won 10-8. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

When the media (new, old, doesn’t matter) around the Colorado Rockies keeps telling themselves something… it’s hard not to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Our friends at Purple Row discussed the Troy Tulowitzki misquote earlier this week, and how the Colorado Rockies’ shortstop had his words transferred to Twitter by Denver Post beat reporter Nick Groke, and from there, taken out of context by writers around baseball.

Read their piece here (it’s short) for context, if you missed it a couple days ago.

Bryan Kilpatrick gets right to the point about media narratives, and he’s right; Tulo trade talk is an example of the media (writers, TV people, bloggers, whomever you decide is media, sure) looking at a situation in context (Tulo’s age, health history, contract, numbers, etc.) and putting forth a (granted, very well-thought out and smart) hypothesis about what might/could/should happen rather than just listening to the Rockies’ front office.

Obviously, front offices may say nothing to media members and/or may outright lie — that’s their prerogative as they create the best possible situation for their club — but confirmation goes a lot further than speculation that builds into an outright narrative with no factual indication about the narrative (in this case, a Tulo trade) being true. That’s where we find ourselves with him now, it seems.

We are all guilty of the narrative — lord knows we’ve written pieces about Tulo the trade candidate (good God, just click here). And we’re not the only ones (holy crap, man). Trading Tulo does make sense on paper (so does keeping him). But on paper is not, ya know, necessarily the truth. And in this case, it may be outright false — or at least void of context.

But something tells me this is how “narrative” works in the social media age; hypotheses, however grounded and well-thought out, snowball into story after story after story that — bam! — creates the narrative Kilpatrick are acknowledges.

The tipping point comes before we realize it and — bam! — all of a sudden, trading Troy Tulowitzki is a foregone conclusion in the eyes of media both new and old. The problem is, it just may not be right.

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